


Memento Mori

by Shadowlass



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21829741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowlass/pseuds/Shadowlass
Summary: For Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, the night was long and full of ghosts.Set a few hours after The Last Jedi.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Reylo
Comments: 11
Kudos: 82





	Memento Mori

He wished he had his helmet. It had been less aspiration than protection, a guard against exposing his emotions. Now every oaf on the destroyer was looking at him, thinking they could know him,  _ understand _ him, from his expression.

They probably could.  _ Damn  _ them.

The sticky residue of tears and sweat clung to his cheeks, and he refused to look to either side as he walked to his quarters. The hell if he gave them the satisfaction.

The knot in his gut relaxed slightly when the door to his quarters slid shut behind him. His things hadn't yet been moved into Snoke's palatial rooms; that could wait for another day, when the thought of it didn't make him want to vomit.

He ran his shower hot, almost hot enough to burn before he mastered his pathetic need for comfort and adjusted it to an icy stream. Warmth and love were for the weak. He was not weak. He had been weak once, and he could never allow himself that vulnerability again.

_ Join me. Please. _

__

She'd left him like he was nothing. Like his mother and father had left him at Luke's temple, a responsibility they didn't want.

__

He didn't bother to dry his hair before turning off the light and crawling into bed. 

__

He should have dropped to sleep like a stone, but his mind raced. and sleep eluded him.

__

_ A door sliding shut, closing him out forever. _

__

He stared at the wall, the ceiling. Felt his heart quicken to a race, then smooth out, although his chest remained tight. Was it harder to breathe? Ridiculous. He thought about sitting up and getting some work done, but the thought made him more exhausted.

__

He didn’t know how that could be. He’d never been more exhausted in his life.

__

He prodded at the silvery thread connecting him and Rey, the one his master had claimed to open. Probably a lie; they’d connected again after his death, sharp and clear. Almost close enough to touch. He’d been too wrecked to beg, even, and she had shut the door between them.

__

She had been his only chance, and she was gone.

__

Now she ignored his attempt. Even when she’d been at her most hostile, spitting and calling him names, she had never ignored him.

__

He closed his eyes and there she was: Across from him, rain on her face; staring at his naked chest, her gaze burning; reaching out and inviting him to take her hand. Shaking her head, tears in her eyes, begging him not to refuse. He could see her there, when he closed his eyes, and he knew that was the only place he’d ever see her again.

__

He opened his eyes. The room filled with shadows, and for a moment he didn’t see anything unusual.

__

Then Vader moved, and starlight reflected off his helmet.

__

Kylo jerked up. 

__

“Grandfather—”

__

His voice was scratchier than Kylo remembered. Guttural. It had been so many years since his grandfather had deigned to speak to him that he barely recognized it. “Don’t call me that. You’re weak. A disappointment. The mighty Skywalker blood has thinned to mere water.”

__

It was as if a bolt had entered his chest and grazed his heart. His grandfather, alone among his family, had always encouraged him. When he was young, his grandfather had been there when he was upset, appearing and soothing him. His mother had been busy with politics and his father had always been disappearing Maker knew where, but his grandfather had never been far. When everyone else admonished or ignored him, Grandfather offered praise and guidance. 

__

But then he’d disappeared, taking his admiration, his advice, his glittering dark light, and left Kylo alone with Snoke, when he had needed him more than ever.

__

“I’m sorry, I tried—”

__

“You  _ failed _ .”

__

His grandfather’s mask betrayed no emotion. It was perfect. Its curves were unmarked, gleaming as if new, the symbol of everything brilliant and hard and uncorrupted by the light, the example Kylo had tried to emulate with all that was in him. 

__

Kylo dropped his gaze. He deserved nothing but his grandfather's contempt.

__

His own mask had been scuffed and dull, abraded by hard-fought battles, a pathetic affectation that had never fooled anyone. And now it was gone, its broken pieces disposed of by some cleaning droid. Its pieces floated in space, scattered by the impact of the Resistance ship’s suicide run, and a hundred years, a thousand, a thousand thousand, some scavenger who’d never heard his name would find them and discard them as not worth keeping. And she’d be correct.

__

“He’s right, you know.”

__

Kylo froze. He had no need to look up: He’d heard this voice nearly every day of his life. It had flattered and cajoled him, taunted, derided, manipulated, broken. He had been unable to keep Supreme L— _ Snoke _ —out of his mind, even with the teaching of the Jedi, even with the dark lessons he’d learned since. It shouldn’t have surprised him that he was pushing his way back into Kylo’s life even in death.

__

He opened his eyes. Grandfather was gone; there was only his last, and worst, master.

__

But Snoke wasn’t wrong, was he? He wasn’t lying. Probably he’d never lied to Kylo. He was patient, and Kylo was weak. So he’d waited, and he’d gotten what he wanted.

__

The thought of that creature listening to he and Rey together—the intimacy they’d shared, the understanding—made Kylo’s’ blood run hot, and he wished, savagely, that he could kill Snoke again.

__

For everything that he’d done, everything he’d made Kylo do, he deserved much more than that quick death.

__

Even in his last moments he was cruel. Torturing Rey. Demanding that Kylo kill her, knowing how he felt. He couldn’t even leave Kylo the illusion that he and the girl had created their own connection. He couldn’t even give Kylo that scrap.

__

Kylo shut his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, he realized Snoke’s icy grip was gone. The creature who’d tortured him for years truly was only a phantom. “Don’t you have a throne room to haunt?”

__

“Such disrespect,” Snoke hissed, rage cutting through his usual purr.

__

Kylo’s voice was hollow. “Ghosts can’t use Force lightning.”

__

“You think you can dismiss me that easily?”

__

“I already have.” The image of his old master’s shock as the lightsaber cut through him—the Skywalker lightsaber—flashed in his mind, then the mind-altering moments in which he and Rey had fought as one. It gutted him that they never would again. “I’m done with you.” 

__

Kylo settled back on his pillow, shutting his eyes and willing himself to leave the day and its horrors behind him.

__

_ Triumphs, _ he reminded himself. The day had been a triumph. Even if it had felt like soul death.

__

“You’ll never be rid of me, boy. I  _ made _ you. You were nothing before me, just a mewling child who knew nothing of his powers. And after all I gave you, you were nothing but a disappointment. Unworthy, ungrateful…”

__

His mother, Kylo recalled, had spent many childhood summers on the shore on Alderaan. Each evening fog rolled in, and every night the foghorn, a traditional warning to ships from a long-ago past, had sounded throughout the night. She’d found it soothing.

__

His mother had the foghorns of that lost planet. He had Snoke’s voice, the lullaby he’d fallen asleep to as long as he could remember. It was almost more disturbing not to have Snoke in his head.

__

He was just starting to drift off, Snoke’s rantings fading into the background, when brightness penetrated his eyelids. He opened his eyes

__

A young man with a mane of auburn hair and a scar bisecting one eye stood over Kylo. He glowed with the power of the Force. A Jedi from long ago, come to seek out the last, deformed remnant of a failed religion. To wonder at the depths to which the order could fall after millennia of domination.

__

But the man’s face—it was warm, and sad. Impossibly, inexpressibly sad. He shook his head, and the tenderness on his face was like a knife. This unknown Jedi knew him, knew his depths and his weakness, every foul thing he’d done, and … grieved for him.

__

No. No. He didn’t deserve that. Mock him, dismiss him, curse him: He could bear that. But the look in the man’s eyes—the—not  _ pity _ , but …  _ understanding _ ? Compassion? He didn’t deserve it, couldn’t bear it. Kylo squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head. “Go away, go away,” he shouted.

__

It was minutes before Kylo dared open his eyes again, and the unknown Jedi was gone.

__

In his place was Luke Skywalker. Older than when Kylo had seen him only hours before, face weathered and hair shaggy and gray. "Didn't think you'd see me this soon, did you?"

__

"There seems to be a revolving door."

__

"What?"

__

"I've received a steady stream of Force ghosts tonight. Don't think you're the first."

__

Luke laughed. "What makes you think Force ghosts are real?”

__

God, even his hallucinations were ridiculous. "You told me about them.” 

__

“Well, what did I know? I studied under Yoda for a few days. Never even read most of those Jedi texts I found.”

__

_ What?  _ “Then why’d you look for them?”

__

“Because they’re important, Ben. I knew that. I was just too lazy to put the time in.”

__

“ _ You _ were lazy?” Kylo repeated in disbelief. If there was one thing Luke Skywalker wasn’t, it was lazy. And reasonable. And understanding.

__

Damn fast with a lightsaber, though, especially when his opponent was asleep.

__

“Tell me about these ghosts."

__

"Snoke. Vader. Random Jedi. What does matter?”

__

“Ben—”

__

“Did my grandfather ever appear to you?”

__

His uncle’s face was somber. “A few times. Not often.”

__

“Did he ever take off his mask?”

__

“Ben … there’s no mask. When my father wore that mask, he was Darth Vader. He was lost to the light. Only creatures of the light can transmogrify into Force ghosts. Even when Sith have had the knowledge, they’ve been unable to achieve it. To dissolve into the Force, you have to surrender to it completely, release all of your ego and emotions. The Sith couldn’t do it. When my father appears to me, he’s Anakin Skywalker. The man he was before he was lost.”

__

Kylo looked down. Anakin Skywalker was just a name to him. His master had told him that Vader had been unimportant until he turned, just one of countless Jedi infesting the galaxy.

__

“I suppose my mother’s next.”

__

Luke smiled. “If she were dead, definitely.”

__

For a long moment Kylo stared at his uncle, the statement lingering in the air, a question, an apparition. Then it sunk in, and Kylo jerked to his feet. “The ship—she was on the bridge, I know it—”

__

“As if being sucked into space could defeat Leia.”

__

Kylo sank back to the bed, relief leaving him weak.  _ Shock.  _ Shock leaving him weak. General Organa’s survival did not concern him other than from a strategic standpoint.

__

“Your story isn’t over, Ben, no matter what you might think.” Luke smiled, dimming. “See you around.”

__

_ Mother.  _

__

“Son.” It wasn’t her voice. It was  _ his _ , and Kylo couldn’t bear it. He could endure all his other ghosts, but not that one. He flipped over in bed, his back resolutely to the wall, and screwed his eyes shut.

__

Nothing more was said, but Kylo realized he was shuddering. He set his jaw, clenched his teeth, but it didn’t stop.

__

Softly, so softly, a hand cupped his cheek. He opened his eyes to see his final ghost, of a girl he had not killed, only disappointed. It had been years since he’d been touched so tenderly, and to his shame, tears started to flow. He covered Rey’s hand with his own, trying not to clamp down. Which didn’t matter to a hallucination. But he would take this, this softness, this sham. His need was greater than his pride. When he finally drifted off, it was with the imagined weight of her arm around his waist.

__

The automated lights slowly raised in the morning, illuminating the empty room. Some of his night visitors had been too much to bear, and he shrank from remembering them. He knew thoughts of them would return that night.

__

He couldn’t stop himself from touching the pillow next to him. She had been the only ghost he’d welcomed. 

__

The pillow was warm to the touch. Kylo’s gaze sharpened, and as he leaned closer he saw a long chestnut strand coiled there.

__

His ghosts weren’t all imaginary.

__

For the first time, Kylo felt a flare of hope. Maybe Luke had been right. 

__

Maybe his story was still half-told.

__

__

**The End**

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End file.
